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Provincial Plowtracker

Plowtracker shows the winter maintenance activities taking place on provincially owned and maintained roadways. Users of Plowtracker should be aware that municipalities have separate winter maintenance programs, not reflected in this application.

Plowtracker offers simple, web browsing functions such as zoom and pan. In addition to showing you where our plows are operating during the winter season, Plowtracker also allows the user to turn on other information such as the provincial winter maintenance service levels, access to the provincial highway cameras, and the ability to see where winter maintenance activities have taken place within the last 30, 60, and 90 minutes.

Technical Disclaimer:The Provincial Plowtracker application is presented via a Google Maps interface. Google may use cookies to track user information. You may be prompted to accept cookies. While the application does work on most web browsers optimal viewing is via Google Chrome.

Frequently Asked Questions:

When I start the website all I see are arrows, why?
The arrows are a symbolic representation of the winter maintenance vehicles. As the user zooms in on the map (using either the scroll button on your mouse or the + in the lower right of the screen) the arrows will change to symbolized versions of the winter maintenance vehicles.

Why aren't the vehicles moving?
The web application provides a delayed report on vehicle movement, updating locations at set intervals. A user can "refresh" their browser to make sure there is not a problem with their internet connection.

Why does some equipment out on the roads not show up on Plowtracker?
While the majority of our equipment have GPS, there are some units that have yet to install the equipment. It may also be caused by areas where signal strength to the GPS is low or an issue with the GPS itself.

Why can't I see my plow?
As you zoom in on the map, winter maintenance vehicles will change from arrow icons to vehicle symbols. If a plow is in your area, you should see it on the map.

Why do vehicles appear one minute and disappear the next?
Vehicles only register if they're moving more than 3 km/h. They will not show up if they are stopped.

Why do the vehicle icons look so big on some displays?
This is in fact an optical illusion when using Plowtracker. The vehicle icon is the same size in all scales of the map. It is the map details that makes it look like the icon is changing size.

I want to see the Levels of Service for Winter Maintenance and I want to see it in relation to vehicle activities. How do I do that?
You can access the roadway information related to Winter Service Levels on Provincially maintained roadways by selecting the “Levels of Service” box in the Legend in the top right hand corner of Plowtracker. {Note: You may need to wait a moment for the map to generate the Levels of Service information.}.

I want to know if a winter maintenance vehicle has been in my area recently. Can I see recent vehicle information on Plowtracker?
You can see winter maintenance activities that have been reported by TIR vehicles for the past 30, 60 or 90 minutes. Please note because of the volume of information being streamed to the website, the winter maintenance activities have been constrained to the map scales where the winter maintenance vehicle symbols are displayed rather than arrow symbols. As a result, you may need to zoom in to an area in order to see winter maintenance activity.

Why can’t I see the winter maintenance activities for the time period I selected in the legend?
Winter maintenance activities are reported only at certain mapping scales where the winter maintenance vehicle symbols are displayed rather than arrow symbols. The user may need to zoom in or out on the map to see recent winter maintenance activity being reported by TIR vehicles

Why do I see information about Winter Activities, but no associated vehicle?
This is a result of settings applied in the Plowtracker application. Vehicles can be operational, or not, at any given time. The track that shows winter activities may be reporting on a vehicle that is travelling at less than 3 km/h and therefore the vehicle position is no longer reported.